SELTI is an organization that promotes tourism through literature. Each feature offers readers short stories, poetry, and book excerpts about real places to visit. Every story has a companion travel guide with links for more information. SELTI is the nation's premier site for the hot new genre of tourism fiction. Available now at Amazon: BLIND FATE, the first interactive tourism novel on Kindle. Visit the new SELTI at selti.org.

Friday, October 12, 2012

Many thanks to Sen. Clay Scofield for presenting the 2012 SELTI Tourism Fiction Award to Kathryn Lang at the Moundville Native American Festival on October 10. As Chairman of the Alabama Senate Tourism and Marketing Committee, Sen. Scofield gave a speech that offered great insight into the future of tourism fiction and how it can have a positive impact on Alabama and the nation. He was the first politician in the nation to invite authors to use real tourism attractions as settings in their works. Below is a copy of his speech delivered at Moundville, the setting of Kathryn Lang's tourism fiction short story "Digging Up Bones."

Kathryn's story won the Inaugural SELTI Writing Contest, the first contest in the nation that challenged writers to use fiction as a vehicle for promoting a real tourism attraction. The entries were judged by a team of University of Alabama English and marketing professors. Click the "Digging Up Bones" link above to read the story, which includes many photos of the real Moundville and tourism links related to the cultural attraction. Please check out the many tourism attractions found in books across the South in the Stories By Month archives to the left.

When
I was asked to present this award, I have to admit that my first thought
was: “What is tourism fiction?” As it turns out, the concept is very simple:
tourism fiction involves creating stories about real places and events—like this festival we’re all
at today—and then
inviting the reading public to come visit those places in real life, through short
travel guides.

Think about
all of the fun places you’ve been to in this state, and then imagine that
readers in Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Mississippi, and all across the nation
started reading about those places in short stories and novels. Then imagine
that they could click on links to those real places at the end of the story and
learn how to go there in real life, not just read about them.

That’s what
tourism fiction is. Now imagine what the impact would be on Alabama if all our writers were focusing on
real tourism attractions in their stories across the state. Here in the South
we’ve always had the nation’s best storytellers, but in these difficult
economic times, our storytellers might even help the state by attracting more
tourists.

In order
for tourism fiction to work best, lots of people have to work together. The
idea came from the Southeastern Literary Tourism Initiative—SELTI for short. The key part
of SELTI’s name is the last part: “initiative,”
because many other people and organizations have taken the initiative this year
to help SELTI promote Alabama
tourism through fiction.

When the
Alabama Tourism Department first heard about SELTI, they took the initiative in
telling the rest of the state’s tourism attractions about tourism fiction
through their state-wide newsletter. When the staff at Moundville read the
newsletter, they took the initiative to reach out to SELTI and design a short
story contest to promote Moundville.

Kathryn Lang holds the SELTI Tourism Fiction
Award in front of her books at the
Moundville Native American Festival.

That
contest, the Inaugural SELTI Writing Contest, was the first in the nation that
challenged fiction writers to promote a real tourism attraction: Moundville. When
writers around the state heard about the contest, they took the initiative to
apply their unique talents to promote this special place through stories set at
Moundville. When the entries came in, English and marketing professors from the
University of Alabama took the initiative in accepting
the challenge to judge the stories and determine a winner.

The winner
is here with us today, and her short story captured everyone’s attention as
soon as they read it. In fact, an important part of her story described the
dance performance that we just witnessed on this stage. Her name is Kathryn
Lang, and you can still read her short story online at SELTI in the May 2012
feature.

Before I
present Kathryn with the 2012 SELTI Tourism Fiction Award, I would like to take
a moment to ask all writers to consider featuring Alabama tourism attractions as settings in
their works of fiction. Our state has so many wonderful attractions to inspire
writers, from beautiful sunny beaches in the south to scenic mountain getaways
in the north, from large cities with unique museums and theaters to small towns
with personal history and charm. I hope all writers and publishers in this
state will follow Kathryn’s example in helping to not only tell a great tale
but to promote our great state at the same time by inviting their readers to come
visit a real place in Alabama.

The next
town featured might be your home town or city. The new e-books you kids are
starting to read now can do some amazing things that paper books could never do
when I was growing up. Some of you may become famous writers someday soon, so I
hope you’ll all consider including real places like Moundville and others that
inspire you in your work.

Kathryn has
a tent on site, so if anyone would like to talk more with her, stop by and see
her after this presentation. So Kathryn, as your senator, I’m proud to present
this award, the first tourism fiction award in the nation, on behalf of SELTI
and on behalf of the state of Alabama.
We wish you well in your writing career and hope that other writers follow your
path to promoting Alabama
through fiction.

(Listen to more from Senator Scofield and Kathryn Lang by clicking on this Alabama Public Radio feature on literary tourism and the Moundville contest: Alabama Public Radio feature.

About Me

I am the founder of SELTI and author of Blind Fate, the first tourism novel in the world with an interactive travel guide inside the book (order here). Blind Fate has live links in the book that take readers instantly to the websites of the real tourism places found in the story--all with one click.
Blind Fate was featured in USA Today here.
Also, please browse the SELTI features for online tourism guides to many Southern books. Email me at literarytourism@aol.com or SELTI Executive Director Kathryn Lang at kathrynlang@kathrynlang.com.
For a more detailed explanation of SELTI, please visit the introduction page at: Southeastern Literary Tourism Initiative.